On Tue, Feb 1, 2011 at 7:33 PM, Daniel Schultz <[email protected]> wrote: > Spaceflight Services Announces Lunar and GTO Mission Pricing > > Prague, CZ - September 30, 2010: Spaceflight Services (Spaceflight) announced > today pricing for small payloads to Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) and > Low Lunar Orbit (LLO). > > Spaceflight, as part of the Rocket City Space Pioneer Google Lunar X-Prize > Team, is responsible for mission integration and providing space > transportation services to Low Lunar Orbit. Spaceflight is providing flight > opportunities for ESPA class spacecraft (spacecraft weighing less than 180 kg) > interested in launch services to GTO and Low Lunar Orbit. > > The proposed mission, which is slated for Q4 2013 or Q1 2014, will deploy > three ESPA payloads into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit and two additional > payloads in a Low Lunar Orbit. The mission is also open to smaller spacecraft > looking for a low cost ride to either of these destinations. > > Mission pricing for small payloads to GTO begins at $795,000 for a 3U CubeSat > and up to $13,950,000 for a full ESPA spacecraft. > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > This is considered a "Low Cost Ride" in the commercial world. This is the free > market value of the launch that we are hoping to get for significantly less. > Wish us luck...
I certainly wish the best of luck with finding a cheap ride! Aside from being GTO, I do not consider their offer to be a good deal at all, since: (1) Their prices are set so that they can finance their own lunar mission (2) The price for a whole Falcon 1 is $11M, which will take 1 metric ton to LEO. (3) Even for a Falcon 9, the price seems to be less than $10M for 1,600 kg to GTO, see http://www.spacex.com/falcon9.php#pricing_and_performance 73 Alex OZ9AEC _______________________________________________ Sent via [email protected]. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
